1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a portable navigation apparatus and a method thereof, and more particularly, to a portable navigation apparatus with a refueling prompt function and a method thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The portable navigation apparatus is getting popular at present with emerging technology, and especially these portable navigation apparatuses further comprise the composition of navigation, memo, communication and entertainment by unifying various features of PDA, cellular phone or MP3 player, etc. However, related to navigation, users are most concerned about the fuel problem, namely, if the fuel capacity is adequate to accomplish the navigation route. At present, the vehicle computer is mostly equipped with a fuel prompt system, but on the contrary, the populated portable navigation apparatuses are short of refueling prompt functions. Since the portable navigation apparatus is broadly populated with enhanced features, it would be great beneficial to have the refueling prompt function deployed in the portable navigation apparatus. However, the portable navigation apparatus is surely different from the vehicle computer, which can not monitor the driving status as well as fuel capacity, and hence, the portable navigation apparatus has not yet equipped such refueling prompt function on the present market.
Please referring to FIG. 1 for a block diagram of the portable navigation apparatus in accordance with the prior art. As illustrated, the portable navigation apparatus 10 acquires satellite positioning data via a GPS satellite 11, and the GPS receiver 12 transmits the satellite positioning data to the processing unit 13. After the processing unit 13 comprehends the current position of the portable navigation apparatus 10, the needed electronic map is then retrieved from the electronic map database 14 so as to acquire the geographic relation between the portable navigation apparatus 10 and the destination. The portable navigation apparatus 10 further comprises a display unit 15, an audio output unit 16 and an input unit 17 regarded as the operation interface communicating with a user, by which the user can enter the planned destination. Lastly, the processing unit 13 proceeds the mathematic operation via a route navigation unit 131 so as to provide the user with a navigation route. The route navigation unit 131 may be implemented by loading and executing computer codes of route navigation embedded in the memory 18. The above-mentioned work flow is the original model of various portable navigation apparatuses on the present market. Hence it is needed to rely on engineering efforts to integrate such a refueling prompt function into the portable navigation apparatus.
According to the problem described above, the inventor of the invention herein conducted extensive research and experimentation that culminated in the successful development and design; hence a portable navigation apparatus with a refueling prompt function is addressed as the foundation and the realization for improving described problems.